Category Archives: Pumpkins

(100) Days of Summer

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Eating, Growing, Pumpkins, Tomatoes, Vegetables

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Waiting, waiting, waiting…

For a while it seemed that we would only ever be eating pumpkins and zucchinis.

Thankfully by late-February we were starting to harvest our plants every few days, with tomatoes, beans and capsicum starring at dinner. Having planted some lettuce seedlings in the gaps left by the zucchini plants, we were harvesting them too.

All in all we are pretty happy with our first few months.

(Weather note: According the Bureau of Meteorology, daytime maximum temperatures were much warmer than those usually experienced and averaged 27.4°C – departure from normal 2.1°C. Total rainfall for the past summer – Dec 2012 to Feb 2013 – was 108 mm, this being slightly less than that usually recorded)

Take a look at a few of our harvests…

Almost ready…

Pumpkin flowers, Black Russian Tomato (green), Green Beans, Pumpkin

Black Russian Tomatoes

Pretty much a meal!

A bagful of goodies

A month of pumpkins

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Growing, Pumpkins, Vegetables

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Finally, our plants have started to come into their own. Streaming over the sides of the crate, there are clear signs that we’ll be making pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin and even perhaps a pie (for our Canadian friends) sometime soon.

Pumpkins: Exhibit A

And when they decide to grow, they don’t mess about. With the amount of sun and rain they’ve been getting, I would estimate they grow easily an inch every few days. Somewhat surprisingly, they seem quite happy to grow all over the concrete carpark flooring, not caring the least bit that the surface isn’t soil. As long as their stem is watered, they’re happy chappies.

Pumpkins: Exhibit B

New Year: New Resolution

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Capsicum, Carrots, Corn, Growing, Pumpkins, Structure, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Zucchini

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I admit, the tomato stakes were pretty haphazard. Planted in a state of plant emergency when it was clear our one plant was spreading all over the ground rather than growing up, it’s become necessary to give it (and the patch) a spring clean.

So with a bit of help from master Carpenter Craig, we now have a much better looking tomato plant, with a strong trellis ready to support all those tomatoes that we hope are on their way. The really nice part about having a well built structure is that we can stop continually tying up the branches to various stakes. Instead, we just thread them through the nearest support and let them do their thing.

Trellis support

Crop Report
Along with the new trellis, we’ve revamped and re-arranged. We’ve added a heap of mulch to keep more moisture in the soil (around 2/3 inches thick) and got serious about culling.

Zucchinis
After attending a workshop run by Lucas from Libertas Gardens, we decided that the zucchinis had to go. As much as we have loved eating them, the plants are simply so big that we feel our other crops are suffering, either not getting enough sunlight, or possibly nutrients. We wanted to give them a fighting chance.

Beans
Whilst our bean plants are looking healthy, they’re not producing many actual beans. We’re going to give them a few more weeks to see how they go with our new look, but beans, consider yourselves warned.

Pumpkins
With their main competitors out of the picture, these guys are doing just fine.

Capsicum
We have only one plant, it has a heap of flowers, and just the first sprinklings of little capsicums. Fingers crossed.

Corn
Ripping out some of the weaker plants will hopefully allow the others to really thrive – we can feel the corn starting to grow, it’s just a waiting game now.

Carrots
Complete. Disaster.

No access to sun (see above mention of zucchinis). Too many other plants growing around them. We’ve completely given up on these guys.

Our new trellis in action, our new mulch and space for a lettuce maybe?